As this blog is mainly about the Meiji Chocolate Apollo set, I will start off with that one!

Packaging

Colorful packaging showing what this kit is all about: Mixing up edible chocolate!

The backside shows the instructions, which are pretty easy:
- Put the chocolate sticks in hot water.
- Use the sticks to make the shapes and mixes in the mold you want.
- Let the chocolate rest.
- Flip the chocolate out of the mold.

So this set is not that much DIY by following steps and mixing powders, but more a small chocolate customization-thinghie!

Contents

This kit comes with:
- A plastic stick than you can use for mixing or for putting on of the final chocolates on a stick.
- Three chocolate sticks (white, milk and strawberry).
- Sugar pearls.
- A mold.

Making the kit

I started off with putting the chocolate in hot water. It's the same process as when you make vanilla/sugar frosting if you've ever done that with baking.

Because strawberry chocolate is my least favorite, I decided to make those the smallest ones and don't mix them up with the other flavors.

Using the sticks was pretty easy and not messy at all. That was a big difference compared to using 'piping' like parts like I did in my Cake Shop kit BLOG #25719 .

There was actually more chocolate than what would fit in the molds. Not that I'm complaining. Chocolate tastes nice no matter the shape~

Going full artist with the sugar pearls so these chocolates look pretty!

After this I put the chocolates in the refrigerator for a while until they look hardened (I can't remember the exact time I kept them in there, but I think it was around 30 minutes).

End result and tasting

Getting them out of their mold was very easy. I think the end result looks pretty funny! The only small regret that I have is that I maybe should have mixed the white and milk chocolate more, to give more interesting patterns in the final chocolate.

And now for the taste, they had a really nice chocolate flavor! The chocolate itself was a bit brittle and powder-like. Such as the chocolate you find on a Pocky stick instead of the chocolate sold in bars. The strawberry chocolate was indeed, as I expected, quite artificial tasting and sweet.

Conclusion

This kit was a bit too simple for me to buy again. I would rather invest in buying more Pocky sticks or premade Meiji chocolate (just like an Hello Kitty pre-made Meiji set I got recently, it tasted exactly the same as this DIY kit). Overall it was pretty fun to make this, so I would recommend to try this one at least once.

Bonus mini reviews!

As these were small sets, I didn't make any seperate pictures for an extensive review.

Bonus mini review #1: Puchitto Doobutsu DIY Animal Shape Pancake

This is a very simple kit where you mix two powders, make the shape you like, and shortly bake them in the microwave. Now afterwards I'm pretty disappointed I didn't make a picture from my end product, as it was quite cute. It looked like a small pancake (although the panda face on mine wasn't as pretty as the one on the packaging)!

The pancake itself tasted like custard and the red detailing was strawberry flavored. This was especially nice to eat when it was warm! Good flavor, but simple kit. Would recommend for a one-time try!

Bonus mini review #2: Kracie - Gummy Candy Tree Making Kit

Oh man, where do I even start with this kit... Everything you were supposed to do went wrong with mine. For the people not familiar with these kinds of kits, I recommend watching this video (video is not mine): www.youtube.com... . You are supposed to switch between dipping the main stick in the liquid and in the powder, to form candies. The bad thing for me was that the powder didn't want to stick that well to the liquid, leading to me having a hard time making candy out of it. I ended up just dumping a bit of the liquid into the powder to form some sort of candies I could eat... I am not sure where I screwed up with this kit, because it's supposed to be so simple. I can't imagine my set being a factory defect, so I will soon buy the other flavored set and try again.

The candy itself tasted the same as when I wouldn't have messed up I think. It had a cola-flavor, a bit the same as Haribo Cola which is sold over here:

I have gotten the question in multiple blogs if I could translate the ingredients of the food I review. This is not possible for me, as my Japanese is not that good. If you are interested in helping me out with translating, please shoot me a message!

Thanks for reading my ramble blog about some Japanese snacks! My next blog will be another grab box blog. I hope to see you there!

victorviper (1 year ago) #24753946The finished chocolates actually look pretty good. I was surprised to see that the various colors of chocolate actually stayed differentiated as opposed to just blending together. Or, maybe that just shows that I have no expertise as a chocolatier...

Weeeell, I have baked with chocolate before and my own from-scratch-made chocolate creations didn't look this good, haha! So I think it's really all about the texture of this chocolate for it to look so good!

The finished chocolates actually look pretty good. I was surprised to see that the various colors of chocolate actually stayed differentiated as opposed to just blending together. Or, maybe that just shows that I have no expertise as a chocolatier...

Pomelo (1 year ago) #24751323Nice review! I agree that it was a bit 'easy', I'd also probably rather just buy chocolate...that being said, I did like the taste of these the best out of the kits I've tried. I don't like the taste/texture of most of the powder-based kits.

Thank you! :)

And yeah, same. Even though I enjoyed the taste a lot, the actual doing it was very easy to do. I do admit that I could have gone more creative with mixing chocolate flavors, though. ;)

Nice review! I agree that it was a bit 'easy', I'd also probably rather just buy chocolate...that being said, I did like the taste of these the best out of the kits I've tried. I don't like the taste/texture of most of the powder-based kits.

chachachow (1 year ago) #24728444I almost forgot that food kits were a thing! The meiji chocolate kit is super adorable <3 Did you get into this hobby from watching RRcherrypie on YouTube?
What a refreshing review!

We used to have a wave of people reviewing them here about a year ago! So if you look trough CLUB #1514 you'll find a lot of reviews from these sets!

I'm not really a 'Youtuber' or someone that watches a lot of reviews on Youtube (I prefer to read/see pictures), but I am known with that name as many shops choose videos from him as examples for their products! :)

Testament (1 year ago) #24729188Wow, I wasn't even aware of their existence.
Seems funny XD

Mellonyan (1 year ago) #24718428I made the Pandango kit by Kracie, so a different one than the bento. They ended up looking like misshaped panda lumps and definitely not as cute as the pictures on the packaging. haha

I did not hear of that one before! :O The examples look cute! But I'm guessing the taste is like that regular super-chewy ultra-sweet Japanese gummy?